The Nith season is underway and fish have been seen in the river, probably kelts. The opening ceremony took place at Dalswinton this year on Monday 26 February and a young angler, after only a few casts, caught a kelt.

I like the above picture very much – taken by comic and actor Bill Bailey from the Caerlaverock reserve (much loved by the BBC spring and autumn watch teams) looking west across the Solway’s salt lands to Criffel Hill. My father and I climbed this a few Julys Continue reading →

So it is five days to go until the Nith salmon fishing season opens.
Let us hope 2018 is a better year for this famous and much-loved Dumfriesshire salmon and sea-trout river.
Sixteen salmon in 16 years is not a lot for me and my dad (who’s caught 3 of those) but when they come they come and sea trout runs have picked up a bit in recent seasons.

This winter has at least been a wet one and there have been two four-foot floods in the past Continue reading →

I only heard of one Tay springer caught on the 15 Jan opening – on Loch Tay. In good conditions the subsequent days have not exactly been raining springers but fish have been caught from Glendelvine, a very fresh 19lb from Stobhall on 16th an old river fish from Cargill and a couple from Balathie but not exactly loads.

From Thomas Thore’s Hardcore Flyfishing website.

My good friend Ken Reid sent over a collection of amazing old photos from the River Dee

Arthur Wood was an engineer by training and had a passionate, and developing interest in salmon fishing: in the eyes of the fishing community, he is credited with proving the value of greased line tactics. Greased-line develops the concept that, as water temperature rises, salmon prefer to rise from their rest on the bottom of the river to take flies presented on, or close to, the surface. As fishers we now relish, and the heart stops, when we see a boil on the top of the water.

Wood’s book JOCK SCOTT goes into great detail on the subject. Now we take a ‘floating line’ for granted, but until the 1960s manufacturers had not developed the line technology to produce self-efficient lines that…

Tight lines and a Happy and Prosperous New Year in 2018 to all my cherished and loyal followers! May this be the season you either catch more salmon, or a seriously big salmon takes your fly and stays on the line until you are able to bring it to hand or bank and then carefully release it back into the river. Having taken a nice picture (which you can send to this blog!) and carefully measured it from fork of tail to tip of nose.

So 2018 has a special excitement for me in that my book on Salmon Fishing, which is about how to catch more of them, is to be published by White Owl Books, an imprint of Pen & Sword books. Scheduled for October ’18. Keep following HSA and I shall be sure to update you! You can follow White_Owl_Books on Instagram or on Twitter at @WhiteOwlBooks or on Mr Zuckerberg’s FB.

Taking no chances on Canada’s Renous

SO: 2017? Well the Nith continues to concern all who love her – but I had a couple of nice if low water visits to the Gaula in Norway and the Miramichi in New Brunswick, eastern Continue reading →

I forget whether I ever blogged about the Glenkiln reservoir sculptures my dad and I, and my mother on one occasion, used to visit before they were stolen, well one was and the others removed about 5 years ago. Sculptures by Rodin, Henry Moore and Jacob Epstein. We still have the photographs and for me they still stand in the wild Dumfriesshire uplands . .

Guest blog by Tony van Diesel

A trip to the Glenkiln sculpture walk in the Dumfriesshire countryside seemed like an inspired plan for a cultural walk. But it was to end in a big disappointment.

Tammy had been leafing through our favourite mini-walks guide book. When she suggested that we could see a Rodin, an Epstein and no less than four Henry Moores all on a four mile walk, it seemed the perfect choice.

We quickly polished off the brunch frankfurters and set off to Glenkiln reservoir, just a few miles to the east of Dumfries.

Art attack

Glenkiln Reservoir car park

We parked the van at the head of the reservoir, and were a bit puzzled when the Rodin “Saint John the Baptist” wasn’t where we thought it would be, overlooking the car park.

But we put it down to bad navigation, or poor observational skills, both of which…